Kankuro Drabbles
by GravityDefyingTrenchCoat
Summary: Some quick drabbles letting us, the readers, get a little bit more insight on the person that is Kankuro.
1. Smirks

**A/N**: Hey, got bored so I decided to dive into my files some more and post these for self-muse. Please enjoy. Also, leave a review at the end. Although, please, no flaming.

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_**Drabble one**_- Smirks

Kankuro had been known to smirk; most did but Kankuro's was different. His right eyes would close shut as he saw the world the way it should be, through his left. His face usually pointed higher as his nose wrinkling in amusement. Than, the long sneering smile would encase his mouth, marring many of his features as his cheeks stretched out his face. The whole look was strange in itself, but it was Kankuro's smirk.

It was the smirk that let his enemies know that with one swipe he could have their carcass lifeless on the ground or already being picked up for the morgue. It let friends and family know his emotions of pride, amusement, or confusion. It was the smirk that could bring people to their knees if they could only read the implications: Kankuro didn't screw around.

Despite the fact that it was his tool, it went against every puppeteer protocol. The puppet core taught the puppet master was to be fearless, emotionless, and tied to nothing on the outside. In some regards, Kankuro was that. He could be cold, heartless, and even downright detached when he wanted to be. But the smirk sometimes gave him away. And for it, the puppet core would not truly acknowledge his true genius; he was once again, underestimated. It didn't bother the sand Jonnin though, he wanted no part in leading the puppet core. His job was to Suna and his siblings first, not his fellow puppeteers.

The smirk still bothered him sometimes, although Temari and Gaara had come accustomed to his mannerism and signature smirk; others didn't. He saw them and their stares but he had long grown out of the need to fit in. None of the sand siblings felt the need any longer, they were happy with what they had.

At times, however, Kankuro did wish that he could cast off the action; not only because it gave away his feelings at times. For Kankuro did believe the puppet core was wrong about completely hiding them, no, it was simply because of the short distant memories they entailed. Simply, because Kankuro had not made up this habit for himself, he had gotten it from another. His father.

The Fourth Kazekage hadn't always been a power hungry fool. No, in fact, he used to be good man, solely intent on taking care of his small family with the life of a top ranking Jonnin. Kankuro could still vaguely remember the days when he would wait at the door with his mother excited for his father to come home. These days were short and few of course, seeing as their mother died when he had turned three. But Kankuro could still remember his smirk.

It was probably a kinder smirk than the one Kankuro imposed but it was the same none the less. His father used to close his right eye, his face stretched out in a wide grin the moment he saw his two young children running to him at the door step long past their bed time. It was a warm memory and probably the only good one left of his father, the rest marred by time and hate.

The smirking hadn't been a purpose choice. As a young child, Kankuro had been susceptible to many influences and he supposed his father smile must have been something he had loved dearly. For soon enough, he began to do his own imitation of it. His mother had cooed him on quite well, thinking it was quite cute seeing as Kankuro had almost every likeness to their father. The young cat-nin had also enjoyed it as well, feeling important and loved more because of it. He enjoyed smirking and soon it became a fall back habit more than an actual decision.

His whole perspective on the manner completely changed the day their mother had died. The man the Kazekage used to be was gone, left with only a heartless shell that felt nothing. And under his Kazekage robes, he stopped smirking. The rest of his humanity gone with it. Kankuro didn't stop though; he couldn't, the habit had become too embellished to quite even at an early age. But it never felt the same; in fact, he felt he hated himself more because of it. He couldn't stop being like his father, no matter what. No matter how much face paint, clothing, or attitude appearance he put on, he couldn't escape the facts: below the surface, he was his father. He hid it well from the world, but the smirk spoke it all. Although not many remembered the smirk, only the older villagers, Temari, and him really remembered the way the man his father used to be. Gaara didn't, having never met the good man that had been his father.

At times he longed to throw off the practice, especially when Temrai's eyes flashed over with sudden sadness if he directed a friendlier one toward her. She never said anything though, he knew she wouldn't. What could she say? It was an old memory and nothing more. Whenever situations like these occurred, it always left the older two quite in bitter sadness as the youngest red head sat staring confused. He would never understand. He had been born into the chaos, the madness, and the dark times. Kankuro and Temari could remember the years before, and despite the fact they loved their life as a family now, they both found themselves wishing to return to better days.

But it was never to be, the rest of their family was gone, worn down and crumbled with time. They were the only three left who had stood fast and lasted against all odds. And Kankuro's smirk was a sign of that.

No matter how much pain or memories it brought, Kankuro would never cast it off. For there were times during the night as he stared in the mirror and caught a quick smirk from himself, he was brought back to earlier times. Ones filled with his mothers loving touch on the back of his neck, the feeling of his sister's hand in his, and the giddy sensation as he stood by the front door waiting for the man that he looked up to. And at times, Kankuro wanting nothing more to remember them. He would never stop smirking.

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**A/N**: Hey! Thanks for the read! Once again, please review! It will really make my day, seeing as I'm putting myself out here now...

Anyway, next chapter will be called 'The mother he hardly knew...' so I'll let all your intelligent minds fill in the blanks about what's to come next. ;)


	2. The Mother He Hardly Knew

New chapter b/c I wanted to post the next one.

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_**Drabble two-**_ The mother he hardly knew

Kankuro's childhood was very vague to him at times. He had grown up in so much pain and quickly that he never really got to enjoy a simple childhood. Instead of playing at the playground with the other children of the village, Kankuro had been forced into earlier training. He never gained any friends, seeing as his father had forbid him from speaking or hanging out with anyone the Kazekage found worthy. And the Kazekage found _everyone_ unworthy…. So Kankuro grew up quite alone with Temari as his sister and his best friend. A strange thing in itself, but it came to pass.

His memory of his childhood was a very bleak and short lived on. At times, he would have sudden flash or a warm feeling in his heart at a random sight like a mother rubbing the top of their child's head affectionately. The feeling in his chest made it seem like he had had similar sensations once, long forgotten and not attached to the person he had become. Really though, there wasn't much worth remembering from his younger days. They had been dark and lonely, filled with Temari, puppets, and occasionally his younger psycho red headed brother. But there were strange images that shone through sometimes. And they were all mostly about one person: his mother.

Kankuro couldn't really remember his mother as a person. She had been there, yes, but his time with her had been short and spent, leaving nothing behind but small things he hardly remembered. What he did remember at times was the light touch that would seem like a phantom sensation on his neck and back, it would always startle him when he felt it. Sometimes it felt as if his mother was around, still lingering after death.

Another strange occurrence was his memory of her light singing voice .Every night as a child, his mother would sing for him. He could remember none of the songs or their meanings, but at quite times, like when he was working on his puppet, he would find himself humming a tune that had no words and would never have them to Kankuro.

Small things like that were all that was left of his mother to him. He didn't even really know what she looked like, although he suspected Temari carried some of her features in her own face. He knew he hadn't gotten any genes of outwardly appearance from anyone but his father, a disappointment to him, seeing as Kankuro wished he had taken more of his mother's attributes more than the man who had perpetually ruined all their lives.

But there was nothing he could do about that, his face forever meant to look like the man that had once been something to them, but was now simply a gathering pile of bones in the cemetery. In Kankuro's mind, the 4th Kazakage belonged there and he hoped he was enjoying whatever personal hell he had metaphorically and maybe even figuratively dug himself into.

Seeing as he looked like his father, Kankuro had no real show of what his mother looked like. The kazekage had rid of as much evidence of her existence as possible after her death, including photographs. He knew Gaara had a framed picture of their mother in his possession, but Kankuro could not ask for it. He didn't really want to ask for it. He figured it was better not to have a mental picture of something he could never have: her love.

But despite the fact he had nothing to work off her attributes with himself, he looked to his siblings. He knew that they looked more like her than he ever would.

Temari was closer to the appearance of their mother than the three. In most regards as her parental and sisterly role as a child to him, he sometimes attempted to imagine his mother and got nowhere farther than Temari's face. In some moral standards, Temari was his mother and his sister at the same time. Although, she could never give him the same love as a mother, she tried to instead. That was what probably put her up in his mind as a motherly figure, but despite all that she had been to him, he knew what attributes that were not their fathers.

Temari's rounded softer feminine face was defiantly adopted from the woman their mother had been. Her soft figure and slender arms and legs also probably had been donated from the older women. A mystery remained at where Temari had gotten her golden locks, seeing as one of the few things Kankuro remembered about his mother was that she had light brown hair. He didn't know but he saw much of what their mother was in Temari. He could also see their father in her, even though she would deny every word of it if questioned. Despite her sense of wrong and right being straight, her temper and determination was defiantly a quality given by the father. At times even when Temari's eyes were lit up for the kill or win, he could see the same spark their father had had right before he was about to divide and conquer some new territory. It was strange thought that she could have any personality traits of their father, but he supposed since he was their biological father, it was bound to happen. She would always be more like their mother though; Kankuro was certain.

Gaara was a different story. Kankuro couldn't really see much of either parent on the surface of Gaara. His appearance somewhat slimed but yet at the same time not feminine; although his features were more rounded and softer than their fathers had been and what his own was. The red hair was a complete confusion in itself and Kankuro figured it was either caused by Shakau or had been a very dominate unresponsive receive gene. If the earlier one was true, Kankuro always tried to imagine Gaara with chestnut brown hair like his; he couldn't. Disregarding his appearance though, Gaara's personality was a strange one. He had been a complete maniac as a child, but now as his goals were set and his temper and anger completely evaporated. If Gaara got even remotely upset by something now, he was really upset. Kankuro could never tell if this new personality was intended to be the younger Gaara's original shy and drawn back one or if his drastic change had reverted him to this. Kankuro would never know seeing as he had never really gotten to know Gaara all that well as a child. The puppet-ninja always liked to think Gaara had always been the way he was now, and at times he felt the compassion and simplistic care Gaara showed through his impassive face was a sign of their mother. Kankuro would never know though; he was only happy for Gaara that he had gotten an even amount of genes to warp most of their father out of him. It was something his body had seemingly never learned.

At times when Kankuro thought hard enough about himself, he hoped his personality was nothing like his father. His appearance was so completely like the man and Kankuro didn't know if he would ever be able to live with himself if he found out he was too much like the previous Kazekage. Whenever he thought he showed signs of being like him, his mind went back to the fact his father had always thought him too weak and soft hearted, favoring Temari over him for being the bolder of the two. He felt Kankuro wore his emotions too easily and acknowledged not even puppeteer training could wipe the fact away that his emotions were what he based his life around. He didn't know his mother, but he felt that was what she must have been like. For his father hated him for it so, Kankuro suspected it probably reminded him of the woman he had put forth as a scapegoat for the village.

His mother was mystery to him none the less though. He would never know her until he joined her in death he suspected. Yet at the same time, as he lived, fought, and breathed with his siblings at his side; he felt he knew her better than he ought to. For she had given him one of the greatest gifts of all: a family.


	3. Puppet Maintenance

** Puppet Maintenance**

A scream filtered through the bright dessert as Kankuro brought his chakra strings to the finale of his puppet show. Blood began to ooze through the seams and small slots where his wood was placed next to each other. It was a rewarding scene of carnage that lay in front of Kankuro's feet, yet, it was also a loss in a way. Once blood had been spilled, there was always someone who had to clean it up. Kankuro just happened to be that person today.

Moving forward and approaching the Black Ant, he walked up to it and used four chakra strings to waken his puppet for a moment and opened up the chest vault to reveal the carcass inside. The sound nin certainly was certianly dead; a mutilated body the only thing left inside the wood puppet. For anyone new or unused to handling his puppets, some might find the sight gruesome as Kankuro began pulling pieces of crow's long blades out of the victim's vital areas. He grimaced a little when he removed Crow's dismembered arm from the sound ninja's chest and more blood spilled over Kankuro's hands and down the man's prone body. This was probably the worst part of any mission: the clean up.

Resembling Crow and Ant in a more manageable fashion back inside their scrolls, Kankuro dumped the dead blood covered body onto the sizzling sand, allowing the sand to soak up the red liquid like a greedy sponge. Leaving the body as a warning and message for any of his friends, Kankuro sped off towards Suna. But the day was hotter than usual, even by dessert standards. And this being a solo mission, he figured it would be best to stop for convince. He wanted to clean out Ant before the blood started to harden, he didn't want to be dealing with flaking blood for a week if he did otherwise.

Stooping down and putting his larger puppet on the ground out of its scroll, Kankuro opened the Black Ants chamber. Immediately, he began to drain the bottom of the chamber from any blood pooling from the bottom. Once done, he took out a rag and began to swipe at the blood that stuck and clung to the in between space of the boards. Doing that and trying to remove the black pieces of hair from the man's scalp was also starting to prove to be more annoying than usual. This man had had a lot of hair and blood for someone of such small stature. Peeling off more dead skin, Kankuro began pulling out his tools and began buffering out some the scratches and dents the sound ninja had put inside Ant as he had tried fruitlessly to escape. It was annoying though because sanding down the inside of Ant in such heat was like walking into a Sauna. A strange smelling sauna, to say the least, for the inside smelling of Kankuro's own perspiration, swelling wood, and warm toasting blood.

It was annoying as the wood seemed to sweat itself in the humidity. The panels were rejecting cleaning from soaking up the blood, but it proved to be difficult to buffer out the wood as spic and span as usual, seeing as the wood was slightly damp. Kankuro was careful though and did eventually clean out the trap, disposing of blood, hair, and some other misplaced body parts onto the hot dessert sand. Next he worked on the outside, pulling up and cleaning the slots that Ant's body parts always wedged itself into. At the same time, he checked all the poison and secret weapon compartments seeing and approving of their working order. All the while he was peeling and wiping sand off as much of Black Ant as he could.

Once his usual inspection was done, the sun slowly beginning to quite down and a cool breeze stirred off in the distance. Kankuro picked himself up, now tired and sweaty from the cleaning but also more motivated to make it home than ever.

Placing Black Ant in a scroll, Kankuro headed back to his village a couple miles off. It wouldn't take too long to reach home so he could lay inside with some nice air conditioning for a while.

Kankuro was very protective and careful with his puppets, sometimes treating them better than with some of the ninja's he worked with. But that was because no one, minus his siblings, saw the work he put into them and the strong stomach it took be able to work with them. No one would understand even if he explained his routine anyway. It always seemed a puppeteer's job to play the part of the mysterious one.

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Favorite part- last sentence... and that's about it. jk.

Please review. :)

~GravityDefyingTrenchCoat~


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